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"We're coming of age," said poet Michael White, who took over as department chairman this summer.

An unusually large number of creative writing alumni and faculty members have released books through major publishing houses recently, a development that seems likely to boost the program's national profile.

In May, Clyde Edgerton, arguably the department's biggest star (“Raney,” “Walking Across Egypt” and many more), released “Pappadaddy's Book for New Fathers,” a humorous parenting guide.

June saw the American release of “Bobcat,” the short-story collection from associate professor Rebecca Lee. “Bobcat” won plaudits from The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly, which put the volume on its “Must List.”

The biggest accolades, however, went to “The Returned,” the debut novel from Jason Mott. The Bolivia native, a published poet, earned both bachelor's and master's of fine arts degrees from UNCW. “The Returned” picked up critical praise from Publishers Weekly (which gave it a “starred” review), USA Today and Entertainment Weekly. The rights to the novel were bought by actor Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment, and adapted into an ABC TV series renamed “Resurrection” set to air in March 2014.

At a university traditionally known for its marine biology program – and for a basketball team that for a few short years was a regular in the NCAA Tournament – creative writing has gradually been making a name of its own. UNCW Chancellor Gary Miller has praised its “world-class faculty” and “unique curriculum.”

Poets & Writers magazine, which annually surveys MFA programs in creative writing, has consistently ranked UNCW's among the top 50. Based on student applications, Poets & Writers has placed UNCW in the top two or three full-residency programs for “creative non-fiction,” a departmental specialty. (Philip Gerard, a professor who preceded White as chairman, literally wrote the book on the subject: “Creative Non-Fiction.”)

Although it lacks the cachet of the University of Iowa's famed Writers' Workshop, UNCW ranks near the middle of the pack among writing programs in graduate applications, the Poets & Writers' survey found.

The department's publishing imprint, Lookout Books, drew nationwide attention in 2011 when its very first book, the short-story collection “Binocular Vision” by Edith Pearlman, won the National Book Critics Award and the PEN/Malamud Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

As long ago as 2007, Edward J. Delaney, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, listed UNCW as one of the “innovators and up-and-comers” in the world of creative writing.

For White, a big part of the secret is “the culture of teaching.”

“I don't want to disparage any other department,” White said. “But as a group, man, we love to teach. Most of us would do it for nothing. There's kind of an infectious delight in getting up to talk about good writing, to talk with students about what they're doing, and trying to help them.”

Part of the challenge is finding the right teachers. White, who's been with UNCW since 1994, recalled serving on a faculty committee charged with winnowing down the stack of applications for a faculty job.

Many of the applications were from obvious stars with thick resumes. White, however, said he was drawn to a slender file from a recent graduate of the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop. Her name was Rebecca Lee, and her sole writing sample was a single story, “The Banks of the Vistula,” which had appeared in The Atlantic.

“It was amazing,” White said. “The sentences are intoxicating.”

Lee got the job, and “Banks of the Vistula” would end up as the second story in “Bobcat.”

A new approach

Delaney, in The Atlantic, cited the department's willingness to try new approaches.

UNCW creative writing students have seen their dialogue dramatized in readings by actors in a black-box theater. They've watched old movies to analyze how scenes are put together. The faculty has pioneered “long-narrative workshops” in which students explored ways to expand a story to novel length.

The department tends to put less emphasis on the traditional workshop, in which each student brings in a writing sample. The other students, moderated by the instructor, read and critique it.

“It can be a lot of people sitting around saying, 'I liked this but I didn't like that,' ” Gerard told Delaney. “It can do more harm than good by creating a lot of defensiveness.”

The result, Gerard added, can be polished but conventional writing, without the wildness and edge of truly risky work.

Growing talent

Other current and former students regularly mention the department's warm, informal atmosphere.

“It's very, very nurturing,” said Xhenet Aliu, a 2007 MFA graduate who published her first short story collection this year. “It's not at all like certain other programs I don't care to mention that put pressure on students to publish. At UNCW, they put pressure on students to write.

“When I entered the program in 2004, I wasn't a writer,” she added. “I knew what I wanted to do but didn't know how to do it. The faculty engaged me in every way and helped me.”

Shawney Kenney is an MFA graduate whose next book, “Book Lovers,” comes out next year.

“I was in my mid-30s when I entered the program,” Kenney said. “It had been 10 years since I'd earned my B.A., and I was coming from a film/communications background, not literature or English, so I felt a little behind everyone else academically.

“I'd also moved (to Wilmington) from Los Angeles and published a salacious-sounding memoir (“I Was a Teenage Dominatrix”), but UNCW's profs didn't hold any of it against me.”

For Nina de Gramont, an MFA graduate whose books include “Gossip of the Starlings” and “Every Little Thing in the World,” a lot of the department's recent success is “serendipity,” she said.

“But a lot of it is (the result of) a combination of acceptance and encouragement. There's a really nurturing current between the faculty and the students.”

For Mott, it goes beyond the student-teacher bond. Faculty members such as Gerard and LaVonne Adams were especially helpful, he said, when he was coping with his father's death.

Small classes help, Kenney said, along with the faculty members' high accessibility and willingness to work one-on-one with students. “The isolated-yet-welcoming nature of the region may be a bonus for people like me who are easily distracted by bright lights and big cities,” she said.

The current crop

Living close to the ocean was a big draw for Kathleen Elizabeth Jones, a poet currently in UNCW's MFA program.

“It's not that I write about water all the time,” Jones said. “But after spending most of my life landlocked in the Midwest, living in an entirely new part of the country from both climate and cultural standpoints has been good for my creative process.”

Jones said she was also attracted by UNCW's three-year track to an MFA – most graduate degree programs in creative writing last just two years – and the fact that the department not only allowed its grad students to take courses outside their genre, but actually requires it.

Benjamin Rachlin, a Bowdoin College (Maine) graduate who came to UNCW from Honolulu, said a number of things attracted him to the MFA program: its ranking, especially in creative non-fiction, his specialty, and its proximity to the ocean. Still, he's drawn by the strong student-teacher links.

“Clyde (Edgerton) has probably sent our class three or four emails this week” with writing tips, Rachlin said. “In July, when I was published for the first time, I left a desperate voice mail for (associate professor) David Gessner, unsure of how to work with an editor. To me, that's the strength of the program. Mentorship is down the hall.”

Jones agreed that the atmosphere is friendly. She cited an in-house CD mix exchange and frequent socials, such as an annual back-to-school picnic at Edgerton's house.

“The social nature of our program doesn't prevent most students from being very driven and serious about their work,” Jones said. “But because we have formed such close friendships and have fun together, the writers typically aren't competitive and cutthroat.”

“We attract students who want to work,” White said. “We've created a community of writers close to the writing. Basically you're talking about a family of writers.”

Facing the future

UNCW's creative writing roots date back at least to the 1980s when former professor Charles Fort of the English department guided a number of poets to publication.

According to Gerard, who arrived at the university in 1990, much of the credit must go to Jo Ann Seiple, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Under Seiple, Gerard launched a study of the possibility of offering a master of fine arts in creative writing.

“We also looked at national trends and found that the new thriving programs were opening in resort areas – Arizona, Florida, California,” he said. “Wilmington was a natural fit.”

Through the efforts of professors Philip Furia and Mark Cox, both of whom would eventually chair the creative writing department, UNCW offered its first MFA in writing in 1996 – even before its bachelor's program, Gerard noted.

The program got a major boost in 1998 when Edgerton moved to Wilmington, first as a visiting professor, then as a permanent member of the faculty.

In 1999, creative writing separated from English and became a separate academic department at UNCW.

As for the future, “We want to grow quality rather than quantity,” White said. “We don't need new classes. We need classes filled with better-funded students.”

If and when new funds are available to the department – something its rising profile doesn't necessarily guarantee – White said he would like to see more diversity programs and more internship opportunities for students.

A lack of diversity, especially racial diversity, is one of the few criticisms one hears of the department.

“Our department doesn't really look like the world, or even like North Carolina,” Jones said. “We need to be making a better effort to consistently seek out and hire writers of color, international writers and LGBTQ writers.”

<p>The fall semester has barely started, but for the University of North Carolina Wilmington's Department of Creative Writing, it's already been a very good year.</p><p>"We're coming of age," said poet Michael White, who took over as department chairman this summer.</p><p>An unusually large number of creative writing alumni and faculty members have released books through major publishing houses recently, a development that seems likely to boost the program's national profile.</p><p>In May, Clyde Edgerton, arguably the department's biggest star (“Raney,” “Walking Across Egypt” and many more), released “Pappadaddy's Book for New Fathers,” a humorous parenting guide. </p><p>June saw the American release of “Bobcat,” the short-story collection from associate professor Rebecca Lee. “Bobcat” won plaudits from The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly, which put the volume on its “Must List.”</p><p>The biggest accolades, however, went to “The Returned,” the debut novel from Jason Mott. The Bolivia native, a published poet, earned both bachelor's and master's of fine arts degrees from <a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic71"><b>UNCW</b></a>. “The Returned” picked up critical praise from Publishers Weekly (which gave it a “starred” review), USA Today and Entertainment Weekly. The rights to the novel were bought by actor Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment, and adapted into an ABC TV series renamed “Resurrection” set to air in March 2014.</p><p>At a university traditionally known for its marine biology program – and for a basketball team that for a few short years was a regular in the NCAA Tournament – creative writing has gradually been making a name of its own. UNCW Chancellor Gary Miller has praised its “world-class faculty” and “unique curriculum.”</p><p>Poets & Writers magazine, which annually surveys MFA programs in creative writing, has consistently ranked UNCW's among the top 50. Based on student applications, Poets & Writers has placed UNCW in the top two or three full-residency programs for “creative non-fiction,” a departmental specialty. (Philip Gerard, a professor who preceded White as chairman, literally wrote the book on the subject: “Creative Non-Fiction.”)</p><p>Although it lacks the cachet of the University of Iowa's famed Writers' Workshop, UNCW ranks near the middle of the pack among writing programs in graduate applications, the Poets & Writers' survey found.</p><p>The department's publishing imprint, Lookout Books, drew nationwide attention in 2011 when its very first book, the short-story collection “Binocular Vision” by Edith Pearlman, won the National Book Critics Award and the PEN/Malamud Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award.</p><p>As long ago as 2007, Edward J. Delaney, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, listed UNCW as one of the “innovators and up-and-comers” in the world of creative writing.</p><p>For White, a big part of the secret is “the culture of teaching.”</p><p>“I don't want to disparage any other department,” White said. “But as a group, man, we love to teach. Most of us would do it for nothing. There's kind of an infectious delight in getting up to talk about good writing, to talk with students about what they're doing, and trying to help them.”</p><p>Part of the challenge is finding the right teachers. White, who's been with UNCW since 1994, recalled serving on a faculty committee charged with winnowing down the stack of applications for a faculty job.</p><p>Many of the applications were from obvious stars with thick resumes. White, however, said he was drawn to a slender file from a recent graduate of the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop. Her name was Rebecca Lee, and her sole writing sample was a single story, “The Banks of the Vistula,” which had appeared in The Atlantic.</p><p>“It was amazing,” White said. “The sentences are intoxicating.”</p><p>Lee got the job, and “Banks of the Vistula” would end up as the second story in “Bobcat.”</p><h3>A new approach</h3>
<p>Delaney, in The Atlantic, cited the department's willingness to try new approaches.</p><p><a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic71"><b>UNCW</b></a> creative writing students have seen their dialogue dramatized in readings by actors in a black-box theater. They've watched old movies to analyze how scenes are put together. The faculty has pioneered “long-narrative workshops” in which students explored ways to expand a story to novel length.</p><p>The department tends to put less emphasis on the traditional workshop, in which each student brings in a writing sample. The other students, moderated by the instructor, read and critique it.</p><p>“It can be a lot of people sitting around saying, 'I liked this but I didn't like that,' ” Gerard told Delaney. “It can do more harm than good by creating a lot of defensiveness.” </p><p>The result, Gerard added, can be polished but conventional writing, without the wildness and edge of truly risky work.</p><h3>Growing talent</h3>
<p>Other current and former students regularly mention the department's warm, informal atmosphere.</p><p>“It's very, very nurturing,” said Xhenet Aliu, a 2007 MFA graduate who published her first short story collection this year. “It's not at all like certain other programs I don't care to mention that put pressure on students to publish. At <a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic71"><b>UNCW</b></a>, they put pressure on students to write. </p><p>“When I entered the program in 2004, I wasn't a writer,” she added. “I knew what I wanted to do but didn't know how to do it. The faculty engaged me in every way and helped me.”</p><p>Shawney Kenney is an MFA graduate whose next book, “Book Lovers,” comes out next year.</p><p>“I was in my mid-30s when I entered the program,” Kenney said. “It had been 10 years since I'd earned my B.A., and I was coming from a film/communications background, not literature or English, so I felt a little behind everyone else academically.</p><p>“I'd also moved (to Wilmington) from Los Angeles and published a salacious-sounding memoir (“I Was a Teenage Dominatrix”), but UNCW's profs didn't hold any of it against me.”</p><p>For Nina de Gramont, an MFA graduate whose books include “Gossip of the Starlings” and “Every Little Thing in the World,” a lot of the department's recent success is “serendipity,” she said. </p><p>“But a lot of it is (the result of) a combination of acceptance and encouragement. There's a really nurturing current between the faculty and the students.”</p><p>For Mott, it goes beyond the student-teacher bond. Faculty members such as Gerard and LaVonne Adams were especially helpful, he said, when he was coping with his father's death.</p><p>Small classes help, Kenney said, along with the faculty members' high accessibility and willingness to work one-on-one with students. “The isolated-yet-welcoming nature of the region may be a bonus for people like me who are easily distracted by bright lights and big cities,” she said.</p><h3>The current crop</h3>
<p>Living close to the ocean was a big draw for Kathleen Elizabeth Jones, a poet currently in <a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic71"><b>UNCW</b></a>'s MFA program. </p><p>“It's not that I write about water all the time,” Jones said. “But after spending most of my life landlocked in the Midwest, living in an entirely new part of the country from both climate and cultural standpoints has been good for my creative process.”</p><p>Jones said she was also attracted by UNCW's three-year track to an MFA – most graduate degree programs in creative writing last just two years – and the fact that the department not only allowed its grad students to take courses outside their genre, but actually requires it.</p><p>Benjamin Rachlin, a Bowdoin College (Maine) graduate who came to UNCW from Honolulu, said a number of things attracted him to the MFA program: its ranking, especially in creative non-fiction, his specialty, and its proximity to the ocean. Still, he's drawn by the strong student-teacher links.</p><p>“Clyde (Edgerton) has probably sent our class three or four emails this week” with writing tips, Rachlin said. “In July, when I was published for the first time, I left a desperate voice mail for (associate professor) David Gessner, unsure of how to work with an editor. To me, that's the strength of the program. Mentorship is down the hall.”</p><p>Jones agreed that the atmosphere is friendly. She cited an in-house CD mix exchange and frequent socials, such as an annual back-to-school picnic at Edgerton's house.</p><p>“The social nature of our program doesn't prevent most students from being very driven and serious about their work,” Jones said. “But because we have formed such close friendships and have fun together, the writers typically aren't competitive and cutthroat.”</p><p>“We attract students who want to work,” White said. “We've created a community of writers close to the writing. Basically you're talking about a family of writers.”</p><h3>Facing the future</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic71"><b>UNCW</b></a>'s creative writing roots date back at least to the 1980s when former professor Charles Fort of the English department guided a number of poets to publication.</p><p>According to Gerard, who arrived at the university in 1990, much of the credit must go to Jo Ann Seiple, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Under Seiple, Gerard launched a study of the possibility of offering a master of fine arts in creative writing. </p><p>“We also looked at national trends and found that the new thriving programs were opening in resort areas – Arizona, Florida, California,” he said. “Wilmington was a natural fit.”</p><p>Through the efforts of professors Philip Furia and Mark Cox, both of whom would eventually chair the creative writing department, UNCW offered its first MFA in writing in 1996 – even before its bachelor's program, Gerard noted.</p><p>The program got a major boost in 1998 when Edgerton moved to Wilmington, first as a visiting professor, then as a permanent member of the faculty.</p><p>In 1999, creative writing separated from English and became a separate academic department at UNCW.</p><p>As for the future, “We want to grow quality rather than quantity,” White said. “We don't need new classes. We need classes filled with better-funded students.”</p><p>If and when new funds are available to the department – something its rising profile doesn't necessarily guarantee – White said he would like to see more diversity programs and more internship opportunities for students. </p><p>A lack of diversity, especially racial diversity, is one of the few criticisms one hears of the department. </p><p>“Our department doesn't really look like the world, or even like North Carolina,” Jones said. “We need to be making a better effort to consistently seek out and hire writers of color, international writers and LGBTQ writers.”</p><p>(LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning.)</p><p>White would like to see more international flavor, too. Currently, a university committee is studying the possibility of an exchange program with the University of Roehampton in London.</p><p>“We want to identify peer programs in other countries – English-speaking at first,” White said. </p><p>From these contacts might grow faculty exchanges and summer-abroad programs, helping to push the program's growing national reputation into the international arena.</p><p><i></p><p><a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic14"><b>Ben Steelman</b></a>: 343-2208</p><p>On <a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/news41"><b>Twitter</b></a>: @StarNewsPlay</i></p>